asteroid-belt

Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt and the only dwarf planet in the inner solar system. NASA's Dawn spacecraft found salty brine deposits in Occator Crater and carbon-rich organic material near Ernutet Crater.

The asteroid belt contains enough metal to give every human being 100 billion dollars' worth. It also contains the raw materials to build hundreds of thousands of O'Neill habitats. Here's what asteroid mining would actually look like — and what it would do to the world economy.